


Night Of The Livid Angel

by Magical_Bucket



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angel Wings, Angel/Demon Relationship, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), Burns, Caring Aziraphale (Good Omens), Churches & Cathedrals, Cults, Demon Summoning, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Crowley, Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Principality Aziraphale (Good Omens), Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Summoning, Summoning Circles, angel summoning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:13:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25806430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magical_Bucket/pseuds/Magical_Bucket
Summary: Summoning a demon can be very difficult to do, but if you're successful, you can have power most would only dream of having. Summoning an angel is even more difficult, but they can give you so much more.Or, If you're able to summon the right demon, the angel will just come to you.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 258





	Night Of The Livid Angel

**Author's Note:**

> This was for the prompt 'Summon', I hope you enjoy!

Here's the thing about summoning immortal beings: It’s really hard to do. If it was easy, nearly every kid and pre-teen in existence would have sold their souls in some contract before they turned 18. For this reason, summoning immortal beings can be very tricky to do, and it usually takes lots of time, effort, and planning. Needless to say, if a party were able to pull off a successful summoning, you should be very VERY scared. Humans didn’t go around summoning demons for petty reasons, and if they tried the attempt almost always ended up in failure. Some tried to summon a demon for fun, but honestly, whoever takes that seriously? Now, the people in history who have been successful in their summoning, want something big. Something that can’t easily be achieved by themselves. Power is a big one, homicide, grand theft, large scale arson, and rarest of all- angel summoning. 

Humans alone can’t summon angels. Summoning angels is far more difficult than summoning demons, and if you do run into someone trying to do so, run very quickly in the other direction. There’s only so much demons can do, but they still can do a lot. Angels, on the other hand, can do oh so much more. 

Really, Crowley should have been happy it didn’t happen sooner. 

Sometime after the nope-let’s-not-pocalypse, Crowley and Aziraphale had settled into a new speed. Not too fast for Aziraphale, while not going to slow for Crowley. When they were working with the Dowlings, there was hardly a day where they wouldn’t see each other, and that hadn’t really changed. Crowley would come and go as he pleased, but most nights were spent on the backroom’s couch. If some warm blankets and a few extra soft pillows had appeared on the couch as well, that was surely just a coincidence. Aziraphale mostly stayed to his bookshop, unless he got peckish or Crowley invited him out. It was the type of relationship where they spent most of their time with each other but weren't necessarily attached to each other's hips. 

In reality, the night where our story takes place wasn't much different than the ones that had happened in the past week. Aziraphale was in his usual chair in the backroom, enjoying one of his first editions while his wine glass rested on a nearby table. Crowley had been partially laying somewhat sprawling across the couch, head resting on a pillow while he held his wine glass in one hand and scrolled through some social media platform on the other. Besides the ticking of a clock and the occasional page turn, the room remained comfortably silent. 

It was, maybe, 1:30 when the first signs started.

An official summons from hell and summons from humans were two very different things. Hell would send you a time and date with a note, and you would go unless you wanted to spend time in the pits, while humans had to resort to more forceful techniques in order to get a demon to appear.

First comes the headache. 

It doesn't start painful, just a slight buzzing in the back of one’s skull. After a few moments, pain begins to bloom behind the demon’s eyes to the point where light is especially irksome.

When the headache starts for Crowley, all he can think of doing is sleeping it off. Perhaps he had his screen brightness up too high and his corporation was overtired. After all, he didn't have his shades to filter the light and he had grown quite accustomed to sleeping nearly every night. With that, he turned his phone off and set it face down on the closest table, followed by his glass. Then, he grabbed the blanket he shared the couch with to wrap himself up as a demon burrito. Melton honey eyes closed as he attempted to drift off to sleep.

Next, came the pain.

Perhaps pain isn't quite the right word. The feeling is certainly annoying; as if your leg falls asleep and you try to move it in a certain direction. That's really what the intensity of the pain is, except all over and you're trying to travel all the way across London. It doesn't feel good if you stay still, but it also feels bad to move. 

The demon being summoned tried both. He tried fidgeting and changing positions, staying still in those spots for a few moments before trying again, face scrunched up in the hurt of it. Most people would be concerned in this type of situation, but Crowley was not most people. If anything, he was far more confused as to what was happening with his body. It wasn't time to shed yet, and he hadn't been itchy, so that was out. Had Hastur somehow gotten in and played some sort of practical prank on him? That wasn't quite right either, both heaven and hell were still terrified of them. No way they would do something so foolish.

Aziraphale had looked up from his book, hearing the constant sound of shifting fadric coming from the couch. He took a moment to watch his Demon, a look of concern and confusion written across his face. 

"My dear, are you quite alright?" He spoke carefully, placing a bookmark where he had left off before setting the tomb onto the table with the discarded glass. 

Crowley cracked his eyes open and looked at his angel. 

"Perfectly fi-" 

He was cut off by the third telltale sign of human summoning. The voices. Once you began to hear the voices, there was nothing that could be done. They had him, he was already past the point of no return.

Crowley quickly realized he was not, in fact, 'perfectly fine.' far from it. His eyes widened and he went stuff as he finally realized what was happening. Across from him, Aziraphale had noticeably tensed as well, all traces of confusion wiped and replaced with pure concern.

"Crowley? You certainly don't look alright, what's wrong?" Aziraphale had said in a rush. His hands began to grip the armrests of his chair, ready to be up and to Crowley's side at a moment's notice. 

"M' being summoned," he didn't have time to explain any further. The serpent took a breath to tell Aziraphale to stay put, to not worry about it, and don't come for him, but by the time he finished his breath, he was gone. 

Crowley hadn't known how long the world was dark for, but it could have only been a few moments before he came too. Before he could even get his eyes open, he could feel the holiness of the ground burning into the left side of his body. He quickly shot up, trying to get as far away from the consecrated ground as possible. 

The first thing he noticed was the coolness of the room. Despite his burning side, the room was made of stone, except for the ceiling which appeared to be wood. The room itself had lots of lit candles, a few boxes that had been pushed to the side, tables, and decorations that had been used for different events throughout the years. 

Of course, it was hard to miss the people.

There were only 7 of them, 5 around the circle and 2 further back doing... something. Crowley couldn't exactly see what they were doing, but it surely couldn't have been good. All the figures were different heights, some shorter than the demon and most taller. All of them were wearing the same white robes with gold trim, hoods covering most of their facial features. It was scary how much they represented heavenly robes.

Finally, his gaze shifted down to the circle he was held in. It wasn't very big, large enough where he could lay stretched out and just touch the edges of it, but Crowley was more interested in the writing that was binding him to it. Red symbols were painted around him, all of them with a different meaning. The most he could gather from it was no miracles were allowed, and it was a holding circle. 

The demon sighed and glared up to the being standing in front of him. The man didn't look phased by this at all, probably deterred by the fact that Crowley was still jumping around to give his feet a break from the burning floor. 

There was no possible way Crowley could convince them he wasn't a demon without his glasses, and since he didn't want to keep Aziraphale worried for too long, he decided to be blunt.

"Alright, caught a demon. Good job. Now, what do you want?" He snarled at the human. "Look, I can't do anything big anyway. I'm not with hell, so you could always let me go-"

"Silence, demon." The voice of whoever was in front of him interrupted. Said Demon tried to disobey, tried to tell the human off but his lips were sealed tighter than a new pickle jar. The redhead looked back down at the writing, trying to find an answer, and there it was. Behind him, a few symbols of obedience. All the remaining color from the serpents face drained. If he hadn't felt helpless before, he certainly did now. He had to do anything these crazy people told him to, and there was absolutely no way out of it. No loopholes to exploit, no mistakes in the writing to rip apart at the seams.

"We have no quarrels with you, Demon," a different, more feminine voice rang out beside him. "Shall we proceed then?" A chorus of agreements and nods followed as everyone around the circle began to take out small pocket versions of the Bible.

The last thing Crowley heard was 5 voices chanting different verses at him as he collapsed.

The moment Crowley had begun to disappear, Aziraphale was out of his seat and at the couch trying to tell the demon it would be alright while trying to hold on to him thinking it would keep the serpent there. Of course, angels knew about summoning and what that usually meant. After all, so many terrible things had resulted from humans controlling angels and Demons alike. Aziraphale was lucky enough to avoid it for 6,000 years, but it was rumored to be excruciating. Just the thought of humans taking away Crowley to subject him to that pain made the angel sick. He could just wait until the demon was released and came back, but there was no telling what the humans would make him do and for how long.

That left one obvious choice. Aziraphale would have to get Crowley back himself, hopefully before the summoners could do anything too bad to his beloved. He hoped for the captor’s sake that he got there before anything serious happened, he didn't know what he would do to them if they had harmed Crowley in any capacity. 

The Principality turned his head to where the demons cell phone and glasses were placed and picked them up. When Crowley was found, he would likely want his glasses and perhaps he could call himself if he got the chance too. With a final thought, the two items were placed in the ethereal plane for safekeeping. 

Now, it is worth noting that Principalities can be very territorial angels. Aziraphale’s territory was without a doubt the entirety of earth and the beings on it. This protectiveness had spread over one (1) demon Crowley. Normally, angels could smell the general evil in the area. Aziraphale, however, was more attuned to those under his protection. All the angel had to do to find Crowley was focus, focussssss….. And….there! It was faint, but Crowley’s presence was unmistakable. Luckily it was even closer than he expected. 

“Don’t worry, my dear. I’ll be there soon.”

The pain was numbing. Crowley had fallen to the ground, curled up into a little ball in the middle of the circle doing his best to ignore the ground burning the fronts of his legs to a crisp. His hands were up to his ears, trying to block out the words, but to no avail. He was being exorcised, and there was nothing Crowley could do to stop it but wait for the release of discorporation to boot him back down into hell. Maybe if he was lucky, he could get his body back this millennium. He’d have to find a way to make it up to his angel, but hopefully, with the help of a good diner and wine, he’d be quickly forgiven. 

The exorcism went on for what seemed like an eternity, but could only really have been a few minutes before Crowley went limp as his soul was thrown out from his corporeal form. Crowley expected to open his eyes to see the scowling faces of Beelzebub or Hastur.

Accept he didn't go back to Hell. 

Imagine Crowley's shock when he was only met with the same room as he looked down at his own dead body.  
Crowley looked down at his hands. He was still discorporated if the blue haze and slight transparency of him was any indication. That only left two questions, why and how? The cultists didn’t appear to be surprised that he was still there, which was worrying, but that didn’t explain how. Chatter around the circle started again, but the bits of words Crowley could hear were whispered in a long-dead language he no longer remembered. 

Crowley tried to say something again, only to find the circle was still binding and the order to be silent was still holding strong. None of the cultists seemed to be paying attention to him, so what else was there to do but look at the circle for answers. His Body obscured some of the lines and symbols, but at least enough of it was exposed to answer the question of how. There, attached to the holding signs was another. Most mortals didn’t know it, thus it was usually looked over. The sign was smaller, but unmistakably there to keep him there until the humans decided he should be released. Not even discorperation would break the circles’ terms, only holy water would do that. 

The two people from the outside of the circle approached the rest of them, one holding a book and the other holding an old wire paintbrush and a tin paint can. The one with the paint kneeled onto the ground and started painting around the red circle in light blue, while the one with the book read something off, the painter occasionally responding in the same forgotten language. Crowley was completely helpless but to watch as they worked. 

He was only clued into what was happening when a third of the new circle was painted. While the circle he was bound to was primarily occult in nature, the freshly painted symbols around it were buzzing with ethereal energy. The thought ended quite bluntly. There was a reason he had been discorperated, one that was terrifying to think about. Crowley wasn’t going back to hell, or back to Aziraphale. They were going to summon an angel, a high ranking one by the looks of it, and he was going to be some kind of offering. A metaphor, by getting rid of the evil, you’re left with the good. If ghosts could cry, Crowley would have sobbed.

To Aziraphale’s dismay, Crowley's essence had led him to an old church on the outskirts of London. The moment he stepped onto the ground to look at the building, the unangelic rage began to bubble once again. To summon a demon was one terrible thing, but to do so on consecrated ground? His poor dear must have been in so much pain from being stuck there for so long. Aziraphale made quick work of clearing the old creaky steps and pushing open the heavy oak door. 

The room the angel stepped into was large and dark, but empty and devoid of any red-haired serpent. Aziraphale continued to look around the old church, but not a trace of any summoning circles or people. He could feel Crowley close by, but it was still greatly faded. The principality was getting annoyed with the lack of demon until he opened a door that led to a set of stairs leading into an inky depth. The angel didn’t think twice before summoning a bit of light and heading down. These stairs were solid stone, the deeper they went, the colder the stairwell became. 

The bottom of the stairwell was much different than the church above. Where the main building had been warm and wooden, the area here was cool stone, no place for a snake. Not far away from the last stair, a door was left slightly ajar, with hushed voices seeping from the crack. The Angel crept over to the space between the door and frame and peeked through it. 

Nearly any chance of him granting mercy to the humans went right out the window. There, in the middle of the room was Crowley, or rather, the body that used to belong to him. The body once full of warmth and color had gone pale and limp. The only noticeable color on the body was the red burns covering the visible skiing on his left side, even beginning to bubble in some of the more sensitive spots. Above the badly burnt body, stood Crowley's discorporated soul, unspeaking and unmoving aside from the eyes following the person knelt on the ground in front of him. Aziraphale didn’t know or care about what the human was doing before the large white wings manifested and his vision went white. 

Crowley had watched the painter work around the entire circle, trying to get a clue on exactly which angel they would be summoning and trying to come up with a way to get out of this situation. He had long since given up on that plan and had started going through his favorite memories with Aziraphale, running through the list of everything he wanted to say and do with him. He really wished that they had more time. Just as the painter connected the final lines of the circle, a blinding light filled the small space. The light was warm, waves of divine rage rolling through it. Even though Crowley no longer had a nervous system, he shuddered with the power of it.

For a moment, Crowley was terrified they had finished the ritual, it was too late and they were successful with summoning an angel who already wasn’t in a good mood. Closer inspection revealed the source of the light. It was Aziraphale. The light dimmed only the slightest bit, and Crowley could have cried. Love and protectiveness wrapped around him like a warm blanket. Some of the terror Crowley was feeling dissipated as he took comfort in his angels’ presence. It was so comforting, he began to slip from reality yet again, being lulled into an odd imitation of sleep.

Aziraphale felt Crowley's fear leave, as he used his angelic influence to persuade the soul to go back into its body. Only once he could sense the life again was he tempted to smile. He didn’t, opting to keep his hard stare on the 7 humans who had been frozen in fear. Typically, Angels would say ‘be not afraid.’ Aziraphale did not say this, for these humans should have been very VERY afraid. They took what was his and damaged it. Took Crowley out of his protection, only to kill his mortal body in one of the most painful places a demon could possibly go. They hurt Crowley, possibly the only demon in existence who had never truly harmed a human soul, who never changed despite everything that had happened, the kindest being Aziraphale had ever met despite being a demon. Crowley, the very being he had silently sworn to himself he would protect. 

It should go without saying that they should NOT be receiving any angelic mercy from Aziraphale. 

One of the humans knelt before him and the other followed. Their voices were trembling as they explained how they had an ‘offer’ for him. Aziraphale didn’t care to listen. He did nothing but snap his fingers, and the humans were frozen in place. The angel flew over them and over to the limp Demon. As soon as Aziraphale crossed the barrier of the circle, the entire thing began to sizzle and disappear entirely, freeing his demon from its hold. Within a second, Crowley’s sleeping form had been lifted into his arms, cradling him close to his chest where nothing could harm him.

Said demon shifted and made let out a tiny whine in his sleep, but the Angel shushed him.

“It’s alright my dear, you’re ok now, I’m here,” The angel had calmed down immensely, comforted by having Crowley back with him. He sent waves of angelic healing through his demon, doing what little he could to soothe the aches. Once he was assured Crowley wasn’t just going to discorporate again, he unfroze the humans. Before they could fully turn around, Aziraphale spoke first. 

“I would very strongly suggest you never attempt something this foolish again. The only reason I intend to spare your lives is because I believe he,” the angel nodded down to Crowley, “has had quite enough excitement for tonight.” Suddenly, a gust of air passed into the room, pushing the flames of the candles to catch on the pages of the summoning books. Normally, Aziraphale would be heavily against burning books, but as this one was the reason Crowley was hurt, the principality was more than happy to make an exception. With a snap of his fingers, Aziraphale used the last of his energy and brought him and Crowley back to the back room of the bookshop. 

As much as Aziraphale wanted to continue to hold Crowley close to him, he set Crowley on the plush couch as that was far more comfortable. He was freezing, so Aziraphale got the blanket that was there over the sleeping demon, and miracled one more up for good measure. Aziraphale held his hand to the serpents’ non-burnt cheek, drawing out the divinity that had scorched his flesh. He did nothing but sit and heal until the sun began to rise in the morning and Crowley began to stir. Golden eyes cracked open, all too happy to see Aziraphales face. 

“Mmmmmm, Angel? Wah’ happened?” The demon mumbled, voice still heavy with sleep. Really, it was far more endearing than it had any right to be. Aziraphale gently brushed some of Crowley's hair away from his face.

“Don’t worry about that, my love. The humans are still alive, though a little shaken. I’ve made sure they won’t be able to summon anything ever again.” Crowley gave an appreciative hum, and his eyes fluttered shut once again, enjoying the warmth of the blankets and Aziraphale’s comforting words.

Somewhere else in the shop, an antique radio switched on by itself, the news reporter’s voice coming through with the morning news. 

“In other news, a church was burned from the ground up early this morning. No one was reported to be in the building at the time of burning. Officials don’t suspect malicious intent, assuming the fire was an accident after a candle was left too close to one of the books in the Churches Basement.”

The news anchor had moved on to different topics, and the radio shut off once again.


End file.
